APPLE IS IN NO WAY KILLING NINTENDO

Nintendos profits have fallen massively because their Wii sales have literally plummeted (they still outsell everyone but not at the same pace as last year, they expected this) The iPhone/iPod has had a negligible effect on Nintendo.

Its been said again and again, the content on the ipod/phone is not there, 1mil downloads for bejewled isnt exactly all that amazing when i look at titles like Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker its easy to tell they are not even in the same category.

The touch/phone is getting its boost mostly from being a PMP or phone FIRST and it isnt going to be enough to hurt Nintendo significantly in their sector and heres the main reasons why.

1. Audience – the average price and audience set it well above your 4-10 year old (120 bucks for a DS or 199 for a ipod?) Nintendo targets the younger crowd (not true in japan though), Apple targets teens and up so they pose a more serious threat to Sonys PSP (which without content makes it not feasible)

2. Content – 3 words Mario, Zelda, Metroid. You can put this on any system and have it be successful. Nintendo has high profile 3rd party developers at the helm on their device, and in Japan they go nuts over this device both young and old. Games like Final Fantasy and the new Dragon Quest move systems, i have yet to hear one person who owns an iphone say “i bought this phone because it has this siiiick app and no other on the market does”.

Performance – the phone/touch is capable but its woefully behind PSP standards and the new Tegra 2 is going into Nintendos next handheld. Also how can i address the PATHETIC battery life, because i know that if i used the thing as a gaming device id better get about 10 hours out of it…

App Store – This is a negative and a huge one at that. theres over 100k apps, almost 9k games. Why on earth would you release a product in a over saturated market only to have it get buried by literally thousands of titles? Also, most game titles are about 29.99 you think that kind of market can flourish on the App Store where most people clamor for free or .99?

iPhone/iPod gaming will stay relegated to the burn 10 mins on the bus ride or sitting in the lobby waiting on someone status, right now they cant compete in the same market as Nintendo for games.

It depends on what you mean by “best.”

The iPhone/iPod touch’s controls (or lack thereof) and incredibly poor battery life compared to a DS or PSP make it a poor game machine (my opinion) and not nearly in the same class as a DS or PSP.

But the iPhone could become good enough to take a chunk out of dedicated portable console sales, because some of those so-called “casual gamers” will decide not to spend $120 on a DS when they already carry a game-capable machine.

The camera analogy is not all bad — hard-core photogaphers carry a Nikon D300 or equivalent, serious photographers carry at least a point-and-shoot. There will always be a market for those people. But that market has shrunk a bit, as more and more people rely purely on their cel phone cameras for every day use. Games could follow a similar track, though game capabilities are harder to build into a phone than a camera.

Still, I also do not fear for Nintendo’s future. Not only do they have top-notch engineering and design talent, Iwata seems smart to enough to avoid complacency, recognize the dangers that a “good enough” convergence machine poses, and guide Nintendo’s efforts accordingly.

I have no worries about Nintendo’s future in any case.

As long as Nintendo is Nintendo. And they have the mainstays (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc) they will never be knocked down or replaced. Especially in handheld. No one has done it for ages.

I’m with Iwata. Apple and Nintendo aren’t rivals. They actually share the same business models and beliefs. Simple is better, it’s not spec game but an interface game, and target the crowd that most people in their business normally leave alone (Blue Ocean strategy)